Booster Quest!

Doug BeyerWednesday, December 09, 2009

here's a certain adventurous romance to the booster pack. It's a locked chest, a hoard of arcane loot sealed up in that crinkly wrapper. While it sits there, the booster's contents remain guessed-at and hoped-for but never truly known, until its mylar hinges give way and its treasures spill out. Apropos for Zendikar, the act of opening a booster pack is a kind of journey, a voyage from anticipation to revelation, from spoilers to spoils.

Today we celebrate that journey with a new game: BOOSTER QUEST!

You will need:

An unopened (or newly opened) booster pack of any Magic set, including the basic land and token if applicable.

A six-sided die (d6)

The Rules of Booster Quest

Challenges A game of Booster Quest is a series of challenges that represent your progress through an arduous quest. Each challenge is a situation in which you'll roll your d6, attempting to get as high a result as possible. In order to win, you must only fail a maximum of one challenge along the quest, and you must succeed at the last challenge of the quest. It'll be tough, but luckily, you'll have a trusted ally with you on your journey: your booster pack. Your booster is your magical arsenal that will help you overcome the challenges and complete your quest.

How to Complete your Quest Once you defeat the quest's final challenge, having only failed a maximum of one challenge along the way, you complete that quest and win the game. If you fail more than one of the challenges, or if you fail the final challenge of the quest, you lose (but you can try the quest again, with the same booster or a different one). Note: this article has three quests. Each one of them is considered a separate game of Booster Quest (but it'll be fun if you try to beat all three).

Using Cards in Challenges Each challenge will have you check your booster for a card or cards that fit certain criteria. If your booster contains card(s) that fit the criteria of the challenge, you can get a bonus to your die roll, or even succeed at the challenge outright.

Example:The Spellcrafter's Lock You face an intricate arcane lock that stands between you and your goal. You'll need just the right spell to unravel the lock and proceed on your quest.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains an instant or a sorcery, you may add +2 to your roll.

You choose which card to apply to the challenge. If more than one card fits the criteria, you can only choose one of them; you can only get the stated bonus once per challenge. (Some challenges have multiple criteria that allow for additive bonuses.)

Any card in your booster can count toward more than one challenge during a quest. If you have a six-mana Zombie creature in your booster, it can count toward a challenge that asks for a Zombie, and toward a later challenge that asks for a creature of converted mana cost 6 or more.

The Foil Rule A premium foil card is a scintillating, special bit of magic to have in your booster, and it can get you out of a jam. If your booster contains a premium foil card, you can use it as a "wild" card on any one challenge in your quest; in that instance, it counts as satisfying all the criteria for that challenge, entitling you to whatever bonus you wish. You can only do this once per quest—once you use a foil card to count toward a challenge, you may not use its "foilyness" again to satisfy another challenge within that quest. However, if the foil card has other qualities (color, cost, creature type, etc.) that can satisfy other challenges, you may use it for those other challenges on those other merits.

Booster Quest #1: The Oracle's Gift

Challenge: Decipher the Map

An oracle in a hooded robe, claiming to be of the Mul Daya tribe of elves, gives you a map to lead you somewhere within the brackish, benighted region of Guul Draz, promising a prize of valuable magic. The oracle disappears into the shadows, leaving you to decipher the runes on the map with whatever spells you can muster.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 3 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains an instant or sorcery, you succeed at this challenge automatically.

Challenge: Gear up at the Outfitter's

Before you and your expedition party journey to the gloomy jungles of Guul Draz, you'll need to procure travel gear and supplies. The outpost of Nirkana, near the edge of Guul Draz, has but one outfitter: a shrewd kor who is loath to sell you his best equipment. He may need a little convincing.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains an enchantment, get a +2 on your roll.

If your booster contains a Kor, an Artificer, or an Equipment, you succeed at this challenge automatically.

Challenge: The Mire Blight

Gear-laden and ready to hunt some treasure, you journey into the jungle proper. It's not two days of following the oracle's map through the muck before disease befalls much of your party. You'll need some good fortune if you're to survive the mire blight.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a Cleric and/or a creature with toughness 5 or greater, get a +2 on your roll.

Challenge: The Barbed Guardians

Having overcome the mire blight with magic and some good old-fashioned tenacity, you trudge onward, following the map through a syrupy marsh and around a mosquito-infested lagoon. The map leads you to a twisted structure of rock and rotten vegetation, a kind of marsh-borne structure. Inside you can see the glow of some golden magic, but in the way are two huge, glossy-black scorpions, their barbed tails hanging above you as if they were brandishing poisoned daggers.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a creature of power 3 or greater and/or a creature with double strike, add 2 to your roll.

If your booster contains an instant or sorcery that could destroy a Giant Scorpion, you succeed at this challenge automatically.

Final Challenge: The Warded Fragment

With the scorpions behind you, you enter the marsh grotto to claim your prize. The light inside is blinding; it takes all your willpower even to stare into it. Inside is a fragment of a large, rough-hewn hedron, one of the ancient, magical, diamond-shaped stones that litter Zendikar. The hedron glows with some sort of powerful warding spell. You'll have to dissipate its protective magics if you're to claim this prize.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 5 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a Wizard, a Rogue, and/or a noncreature card with a subtype (e.g. Aura, Arcane, Equipment, Trap), get a +2 on your roll.

If your booster contains a mythic rare, you succeed at this challenge automatically.

If you succeeded at this final challenge, and failed a maximum of one of the other challenges, you've completed this booster quest! If you failed two or more challenges, or if you failed the final challenge, you'll have to try the quest again before moving on to the next quest. Beware: the next quest will be a little harder.

Booster Quest #2: The Pelakka Karst

Challenge: Hauling the Hedron

You know there's more to this dark jungle than a single hedron fragment, and you're beginning to understand the oracle's scribblings on this map of yours. You're determined to find the other hedron pieces to make whole what was once shattered. But even this one hedron fragment weighs more than all your gear put together—it'll take some serious hauling, or a brawny pack animal, to lift it out of here and get back on the trail.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 3 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a Giant and/or a creature of power 4 or greater, you succeed at this challenge automatically.

Challenge: The Eyes of Malakir

Hedron fragment in tow, you march onward, following the map deeper into the rainforest of Guul Draz. As the shadows grow deeper, you begin to see pairs of eyes flashing in your lantern-light. Disaster—you've stumbled upon a hunting-party of vampires. You must be dangerously close to the vampire city of Malakir—damn that oracle! It's going to be a grim fight, but you might just know a spell that can scatter these fiends.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a card with more than two words in the name, get a +2 to your roll.

Challenge: The Dangerous Bloodscent

Having escaped the wrath of the vampire warriors, you endeavor to swing wide of Malakir. But your scent is on the wind now, and other vampire scouts could be close. You'll have to mask your trail somehow. Can you come up with a plan—or, better yet, an appropriate bit of spellcraft?

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains an Illusion, a Shapeshifter, a Vampire, and/or an Aura, get a +2 to your roll.

Challenge: Into the Karst

The map leads you into the dreaded Pelakka Karst, a system of limestone gullies and murky canals that form a treacherous, almost impassable waterway. This is the last place any guide would steer you, but this is where the map points. It'll take a painstaking, careful climb to navigate to the heart of the Karst—a test of every bit of your party's skills.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains two or more creatures that each have more than one creature type, get a +2 on your roll.

Challenge: The Pelakka Wurm

Having adapted your trekking skills to the perilous Karst, you've almost begun to enjoy the thrill of being out in the wilds—and if the oracle's map is correct, there's a priceless treasure in your sights. But one of your expedition's scouts cries out the word no one wants to hear in Pelakka Karst—"WURM!" Defeat the Wurm or perish.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 5 or greater on your d6.

If the sum of the power of creatures in your booster (including creature tokens if applicable) is 13 or greater, get a +3 on your roll.

Challenge: The Bloodchief's Avarice

With the wurm behind you, you journey onward into the jagged chasm of the Karst. You rappel down a deep sinkhole—and come upon a second glowing hedron fragment that looks like it would fit snugly with the first! But guarding it is Thelzaia, a powerful vampire bloodchief known for her endless greed for ancient relics, and she's surrounded her entourage of null zombie minions. She'll end you unless you somehow end her.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 5 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a card with "destroy" in its rules text, get a +2 on your roll.

If your booster contains a rare or mythic rare that is white and/or green, get an additional +2 on your roll.

If you succeeded at this final challenge, and failed a maximum of one of the other challenges, you've completed this booster quest! If you failed two or more challenges, or you failed the final challenge, you'll have to try the quest again before moving on to the next quest. Beware: the next quest will be the hardest of all.

Booster Quest #3: The Ruins of Hagra

Challenge: The Cistern's Morass

The Pelakka Karst surrounds and feeds a vast inland basin that's filled with malevolent, piranha-infested marshes and ancient, sinking ruins. The Hagra Cistern, as it's known to seasoned explorers, hides vast treasure within its dilapidated stone structures. But just to make it to the ruins proper, you'll have to survive two days crossing the grasping mire. You hope you avoid those rumored ogre bandits.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 3 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a Swamp or a card with "Swamp" or "swampwalk" in its rules text, you succeed at this challenge automatically.

Challenge: Croc Attack!

As you wend your way through the quagmire, one of your scouts notices motion in the dusky waters. Just as he yells a warning, huge jaws snap open and tear the scout's leg clean off—and other creatures pull him under the surface to his doom. The expedition is surrounded—swamp crocodiles! It'll take some serious magic to save the rest of the party from their razor-lined jaws.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a Warrior, a Soldier, and/or a card with "damage" in its rules text, get a +2 on your roll.

Challenge: Party, Down

The good news is, you've finally located the entrance to the ruins of Hagra Cistern. The bad news is, the entrance is a precarious pit of dizzying depth. Getting everyone down there won't be easy, even with all the climbing gear you've brought with you.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 3 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains an Equipment or a creature with flying, you succeed at this challenge automatically.

Challenge: The Ogre Witch-Vessel

These stone ruins extend deep under the marsh, their sloping sides keeping out tons of water and earth—probably with the help of strong enchantments. Your map has become useless now, so it's up to you to find the treasure you seek. As you explore the murky passages of the underground ruin, a large figure emerges and growls a vile spell at your party. He's an ogre—but this brute is no bandit. His mad, staring eyes and arcane strength identify him as a witch vessel, one whose soul has become corrupted by the evil power locked in the ruins. You'll have to overcome his curse with whatever skills you possess, or this adventure may come to an abrupt end.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a creature with combined power and toughness 8 or greater, or a card with a in its rules text, get a +2 on your roll.

Challenge: The Ravenous Cavern

You've made it this far, and you've charted many rooms and passageways in this lightless ruin. You've selected a chamber to rest for a few fitful hours, but you can't help but notice—is this chamber ... salivating? Everybody out! But suddenly the exit back the way you came disappears. It'll be an impressive feat of subterranean navigation, or blind luck, if you manage to find your way out of here.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 4 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a nonbasic land, you succeed at this challenge automatically.

Challenge: Vaults Unstirred

You've done it—you've made it through the maze of corridors, guardians, and traps. You've discovered the terrible vault where the last piece of the antediluvian hedron must lie. But the enormous crypt is sealed with ancient magics that form an interlocking puzzle of spellcraft. Luckily, you believe you have just the combination to bust it wide open.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 6 or greater on your d6.

For each different card type in your booster, get a +1 on your roll. (The card types are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, and tribal.)

Challenge: The Fallen One

You unseal the crypt and obtain the last piece of the hedron. Assembling the artifact, you feel it pulsing with potent and unmistakably sinister magic. But before you can truly appraise your discovery, a hooded figure appears—the same hooded figure who gave you the map to this place, and who claimed to be an oracle of Mul Daya! The figure throws off the cloak—it's Ob Nixilis, the dreaded demon. Cracking a vile grin, he thanks you for doing the work of bringing together the artifact, which he says he will use to exact vengeance on this world for destroying his lost planeswalker spark. You know you'll have to destroy the hedron to get out of this alive—and you must defeat Ob Nixilis himself.

To succeed at this challenge, roll a 7 or greater on your d6.

If your booster contains a card of converted mana cost 6 or greater, get a +2 on your roll.

If your booster contains a card with two plus signs in its rules text (e.g. "+1/+1"), get a +2 on your roll.

If your booster contains a rare or mythic rare creature or a planeswalker, get a +2 on your roll.

If you succeeded at this final challenge, and failed a maximum of one of the other challenges, you've completed this booster quest!

You strike down Ob Nixilis, who disappears in a haze of black mana. You reseal the puzzle-crypt again with the thrumming hedron inside, its destructive power locked safely away. You'll be heading home without a fabulous relic in tow, perhaps, but you take pride in the knowledge that you helped rid the world of one of its most dire threats. Now to head home again, or to chase another adventure in another one of Zendikar's perilous locales. If only some mysterious stranger would hand you another map ...!